Endowed with €15,000, the Prize recognizes literary creations and scientific works which approach the theme of nature in an original way, opening new ways of thinking about contemporary ecological issues.
« In Avec Pierre de Ronsard, Franck Maubert shows us that Man and nature are not two entities that harm each other but that Man is there to celebrate it! » Xavier Patier, President of the jury
Born in 1955, Franck Maubert is an author, journalist and art critic specializing in 20th century painting. Essayist and novelist, he won the Renaudot Essay Prize in 2012 for The latest model (Ed. of the Thousand and One Nights), portrait of Caroline, Giacometti’s last model and last love. He is also the author of numerous art books and interviews, notably with Francis Bacon to whom he has devoted several works, translated into several languages.
In With Pierre de Ronsard (published in August 2024 by Editions du Mercure de France), Franck Maubert follows in the poet’s footsteps in Loir-et-Cher and signs a declaration of love for the Loir valley: land of rivers, hills and birds.
The François Sommer Prize is awarded as a preamble to the Lire la Nature exhibition which will take place on February 1 and 2, 2025 at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature and in which Franck Maubert will participate. He will speak during this round table:
Nature: change perspective (Saturday February 1 at 5:45 p.m.): meeting alongside Thibault de Meyer (Who saw the zebra?, Les Liens qui liberates) and Jacques Tassin (Le jardinier de Ronsard, Odile Jacob).
The jury is made up of Xavier Patier, writer, president of the jury; Vincent Munier, photographer and honorary president 2025; Sara Buekens, professor of French and Francophone literature at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and editor-in-chief of the Revue critique fixxion française contemporain; Jean-Luc Chapin, photographer; Nicolas Chaudun, writer; Sibylle Grimbert, writer and editor; Dorian Jude, head of the bookstore at the Museum of Hunting and Nature; Léon Mazzella, writer; Éric Neuhoff, journalist, essayist and writer; Catherine Pgard, former president of the Public Establishment of the Château, Museum and National Estate of Versailles; Fanny Wallendorf, writer and 2024 winner of the Prize; the Master in Transition Governance, Ecology and Societies (AgroParisTech/Paris Saclay) represented by two students, Irina Loiseau and Abel Masson.
The François Sommer Foundation, created in 1964 and chaired by Henri de Castries, works for the reconnection between Man and Nature. Financially and intellectually independent, it acts to protect wildlife and its habitats through five axes: culture and art, management of natural spaces, scientific research, patronage, and dissemination via conferences and publications.
Some winners from previous years:
Erri de Luca, The weight of the butterflyGallimard, 2012 – Jim FergusMy America, Cherche-Midi, 2013 – Jean-Christophe BaillyAnimal BiasChristian Bourgois, 2014 – Henrietta Rose-Innes, NiniveZoé, 2015- Grégory Quenet, Versailles, a natural historyThe Discovery, 2016 – Jean-Baptiste Morizot, The Diplomats, Cohabiting with wolves on another map of lifeWild Project, 2017 – The eight mountains, Paolo Cognetti, Stock, 2018 – Alain Finkelkraut, Animals and menStock, 2019 – Nastassja Martin, Believe in wild beasts, Verticals, 2020 – human nature, Serge Joncour, Flammarion, 2021 – The Animal and death, Charles Stépanoff, The Discovery, 2022 – The last of his people (Anne Carrière), Sibylle Grimbert, 2023 – Until the miracle (Finitude), Fanny Wallendorf, 2024 –
Photo credits: Alban de Loisy, Sara Buekens, Sibylle Grimbert, Nicolas Chaudun, Xavier Patier, Franck Maubert, Léon Mazzella, Abel Masson, Eric Neuhoff, Irina Loiseau and Jean-Luc Chapin. François Sommer Prize.
By Hocine Bouhadjera
Contact : [email protected]
